Don't Stop Believin'

by Olivia Newton-John

  They couldn’t possibly know that so many years later those same steps would be used to help people around the globe regain their health and lives.

  It’s stunning when you think of how everything is connected.

  What we were doing for cancer awareness was ground-breaking and the press from all over the world was following us. There were reports in newspapers and magazines, but they only told part of an unravelling story. For me, the joy in this trek came from the small magical moments, like Cliff singing to us on the bus, or the day my Grease co-star and good friend Didi arrived to walk with me and reminisce about the happy days of filming the movie. And walking across the Gobi Desert is something I will never forget.

  The days required so much stamina and I had to really bring it since I was leading the others. What I lacked in physical strength, though, I made up for with the determination gene I got from Mum. She was a strong woman who loved the outdoors, and she used to hike the mountains of Europe with her father, Max Born. How I wished she could have walked the Great Wall with me. She would have loved it!

  One of the days, we hiked for about eight hours, going straight up – no joke. Oh, how I ached at night! That next morning I was practically crawling out of the bed and towards breakfast.

  I groaned silently (and then not so quietly) while my legs wobbled. But then I shook it off, brushed my teeth and pulled on my sweatshirt.

  Soon I was out the door and facing the Wall.

  Every morning we would hold hands and sing ‘Magic’. It was life-affirming as we made our way towards that first step.

  You have to believe we are magic.

  Nothing will stand in our way.

  One of the most memorable moments was when Joan Rivers arrived to ‘walk’. Her manager, Billy Sammeth, a dear friend of mine who we’ve just lost, had also been my manager for a while.

  He made the call to Joan who quickly said yes.

  One morning, I stepped off the bus in Beijing and Joan was right there in perfect make-up with that big smile, wearing black pants, a black shirt, a hot pink trench coat – and sky-high red pumps. Wait, what? There is no way she could make it up even two stairs in shoes that high!

  ‘You’ve got your heels on, Joan!’ I said in an amazed voice.

  I’ll never forget her words to me.

  Joan said, ‘Olivia, when you invited me, I thought you said The Great Mall of China!’

  She followed this by walking up a few stairs, turning around and asking, ‘Where’s the ladies room?’

  Later she told Martha Stewart on her show, ‘There was so much wind on the Wall, I could have skipped my last two face lifts.’ She also remarked, ‘The Wall was built and rebuilt over the centuries. It’s had more work done on it than I’ve had on my face.’

  God love her.

  Joan changed her shoes and we gave her walking poles to help with the climb, and we were off. She and Billy were there with me for a full day. ‘I was the only one there on a walker,’ Joan later joked.

  Joan brought spades of wonderful and much-needed humour to our journey. I’m so grateful she came all that way for me and so sad that she left us much too soon. I miss her warmth and kindness.

  On we walked through every climate and condition: hot, cold, rain, burning sun and snow.

  There were other practical concerns along the way as well. I was honestly worried about how anyone would go to the bathroom. That problem was solved by taking along a red tent with a toilet inside. Boy, that red tent was a beacon of relief for us all (in more ways than one). Our guides were kind enough to carry this contraption, which wasn’t easy.

  One day we were walking along a freezing-cold stretch with several inches of snow on the ground. We had a mile and a half to go to reach the next village, which, when you’re walking along the Wall, might as well be a thousand miles. We had two amazing local helpers who carried certain supplies, along with a donkey helper. That day, they set up the red tent in the middle of a barren field where the wind was so fierce that I was doing some tent business and the actual tent was almost whipped away. (Just imagine that photo hitting the internet!)

  Each day, we did what we had to do. No matter what. Weak but determined is how I felt one morning when I woke up with a raging fever and a throat that was red and raw. I couldn’t skip a day for any reason whatsoever because I was the leader, so I put a scarf around my neck, hid my illness from everyone else and hit the stairs.

  One foot in front of the other. Climbing, climbing, climbing. My bones ached from the fever and I could barely swallow, but there was no choice but to trudge on. People were depending upon us to raise this money.

  Never give in.

  One day we were walking through the snow in a little town when a young girl ran right by me in a red sweater with something wiggling in her hands. I saw that she was on her way to a pond that was in front of us – and then I heard a loud splash. ‘What is that?’ I said to the young man walking with me.

  He ran to the pond and fished out a little ball of fur. It was a kitten, a tiny baby about five weeks old, soaking wet, understandably frightened and cold beyond belief.

  I was wearing a bumbag (fanny pack) and frantically looked through it for something so this little kitten wouldn’t freeze to death. I found my warm red scarf and wrapped him in it, rubbing his wet fur dry until the shaking little creature began to relax. Then I tucked him into my bumbag, which was against my warm body. We were close to our bus – we had no milk or food for him, but at least there was heat. Luckily I managed to find some condensed milk in the next town. I poured a little on my fingers and put it in the mouth of this precious little kitten whose eyes were still closed. He was a ginger tom and, of course, I called him Magic.

  I carried him with me for the rest of the walk and let him sleep on my heart at night. I adored him and he became our trip mascot.

  Magic had a standing order of fresh milk at each one of our stops and slept with me at night. He walked the Wall with me every day in my bumbag. I was so desperate to bring him back to the United States to live with me, but I knew I couldn’t bring a live animal through customs, and certainly not one that young that didn’t have his shots yet.

  One of our cameramen offered to keep Magic, promising he would be well loved. It broke my heart to give him up, but at least I knew he was going to a good home. I think it was Magic who helped me get through the last days of the walk, with his tiny meows making me smile each step of the way.

  I was so attached to him and I still cry when I see photos of him. He died a few days after I left China. I missed him and knew he missed me. I think my love kept him alive. He was too young to have been away from his mum and needed her milk and nurturing to stay alive. I tried to be all that for him, but we just ran out of time.

  The last two days on the Wall, Magic opened his eyes and I stared into them. This little creature had helped me so much and given me so much comfort, especially after John got a call from his brother Don in North Carolina. Don’s wife, Vivian, who had struggled with brain cancer for two years, was dying. John immediately began the long trip back and arrived half an hour before she passed. As for the kitten, I’m glad that he could stare into the face of one who loved him during his brief life. Our little mascot was in my bumbag the day we crossed the finish line in Beijing. Years later, I would adopt a cat in the US and name him Magic #2.

  I’ll always be grateful to all who took part in this adventure.

  Remember I said someone else was also walking with me on the Wall? Well, it was the love of my life: John Easterling.

  True love found me when I wasn’t looking.

  I first met John through my dear friends Nancy and Jim. John is an environmentalist, a treasure hunter, a plant-medicine expert and a businessman. He spent forty-two years working with plants in the Amazon rainforest in Peru, which is why he is known as Amazon John. We had crossed paths over the years at charity events and talks he gave on plants and botanicals and I found him very interesting.

&n
bsp; Apparently, he didn’t feel the same way about me. As John will tell you, ‘I thought anyone from Hollywood and involved in the things she was involved with must be some kind of nutcase!’ (Maybe he was right!)

  John will also say that he knew of me, but that was it. ‘I didn’t know any of the details. I didn’t have any of her albums. I hadn’t seen any of her movies. It just wasn’t in my orbit.’ His ‘orbit’ was treasure hunting in the Amazon. There was no room there for a trip to the multiplex to see Xanadu!

  Nancy and Jim had met John at the Anaheim Health Expo in 1992 and quickly developed a friendship. Nancy was actually in line for an ice-cream and saw this man giving people samples of his herbs. ‘I listened to John speak about how he has been to the Amazon over sixty times,’ Nancy told me. ‘His mission is to help people live healthier lives.’

  ‘My dream,’ John told the crowd, ‘is to see millions of people experience these life changing herbs.’

  Nancy had taken her mother, Lenore, then in her early eighties, to the Expo that day. Lenore tried the herbs, and felt so good and had so much energy that she stayed up half the night and cleaned out all her closets.

  Nancy joked, ‘I’ll have what she’s having!’

  Lenore asked to go back to the Expo the next day to stock up on more herbs from ‘that nice, handsome man’. Nancy and Jim loved the products as well, and they found them so life-changing that Jim ended up becoming an independent distributor for John’s company, Amazon Herb.

  Over the years, I saw John with Nancy and Jim several times, and we always chatted for a few minutes. Then one day he came to Malibu to do a special talk about the rainforest. At the time, I was living there with Chloe who was about nine. We were coping with the divorce.

  John gave his speech that evening, which was fascinating. I was one of the many who gathered afterwards to talk to him and we shared a few words. He had to leave early the next morning – but then the unimaginable happened.

  On the way to the airport, he was blinded by the sunlight and suddenly his car careened off the road and fell fifty feet down onto another road, totalling the rented Lexus. This could have been a fatal accident, but he was very, very lucky. The car somehow found solid ground below. The impact of the crash to earth was jolting for poor John, though, who was strapped to a plank and rushed by ambulance to the hospital in Santa Monica in agonising pain.

  Doctors told him that he had almost certainly broken something in his back and the X-ray showed a fractured T-12 in his spine. They wanted to put him on painkillers, but John refused to take anything but his own herbs. ‘I knew what the best material was for relieving pain,’ he said. And they didn’t have it at the hospital.

  After the adrenaline of the accident began to subside, the real pain set in. He made a phone call to Jim and Nancy, who were living in my guesthouse at the time. Jim brought him a bottle of his Recovazon (one of John’s Amazon Herb products for recovery from injury or physical exertion), and soon John had clearance to actually leave the hospital, despite his fractured back.

  John didn’t know anyone locally, except for Nancy, Jim and me. Since they were living with me, all of us made an anxious trek to the hospital.

  We picked up a very apologetic and stoic John, who hid his pain, insisting that he hated to bother any of us. We drove him back to my house to rest and recoup. I got him settled on the couch, reminded him that this was no bother at all, and got ready to jump back into my car.

  ‘I’ll run to the pharmacy to get your painkillers,’ I told him.

  ‘I refuse to take them,’ said the man who could barely stand.

  What?

  ‘I’m very confident in the botanicals I’m doing. But I do need a little help,’ he insisted.

  There I was at my house rubbing his back, arms and legs with Recovazon. Chloe wandered downstairs to see what was going on. It’s funny what you remember, but I can still hear him telling my daughter that she had healing hands. Chloe was fascinated and quickly signed up to become my assistant nurse. ‘Olivia and Chloe laid their hands on my back and it was a big relief,’ John recalls. ‘They had some really powerful healing energy between them.’

  The ‘patient’ insisted that he didn’t need anything else (beside his herbs and maybe a glass of water) and then went to sleep on my couch. The last thing I remember from that night was John calling his girlfriend to tell her what happened. Later, I wandered downstairs to check on him and smiled when I saw Scarlett, my Irish setter, sleeping by John’s feet. Dogs always seem to know when someone is in pain.

  I was shocked when John insisted he would leave the next day.

  ‘But you can barely walk! Why don’t you take a few days and just relax?’ I asked.

  He wouldn’t hear of it. A warrior-type, he forced himself to stand, thanked us profusely, gave Scarlett a pat and called a cab. I will never be sure how he did it. When I called a few days later to check on him, he said he was fine. With a fractured back. That’s my boy!

  I didn’t even have a chance to see for myself how he’d healed because I wouldn’t see him again. Not for years.

  John and I did talk occasionally on the phone, though, and during one of our chats I mentioned that our darling Scarlett was pregnant. ‘Can I have one of the puppies?’ John asked me. So I sent Duke, the largest of the golden pups, to him, plus another pitch-black pup named Seal to his friend Charlie. I was just thrilled that they were going to great homes and I wouldn’t need to worry about two of the nine new additions.

  Even after this, I still didn’t see John for a long time, except for a brief encounter at a charity event. Out of the blue one day, I called him to check on Duke and ask a business question. I was thinking of doing a skincare line for one of the major chains and wanted to see if we could rebottle his own skincare products (that I loved) and rename them for this possible deal. We could easily get them into a lot of stores.

  ‘John, I have been asked to do this . . .’ I began.

  I described the idea to him and he said, ‘Why would I want to do that?’

  I reminded him that it would be a great way to expand his distribution to the entire world. ‘But if it’s a major chain store, they’re going to want to cheapen my product and put it in toxic plastic bottles,’ he said. ‘It’s not something I’m interested in.’

  That was that.

  I’d be lying if I said it didn’t hurt my feelings. On the other hand, I really respected John and how he stuck to his ideals of producing pure products based on his deep knowledge of health and healing. He was so proud of his line and personally sourced every ingredient from the Amazon. It wasn’t about the money for him. It was about the product and not diminishing the quality of it – even a tiny bit – despite the fact that he was being offered store placement around the globe. Frankly, there aren’t many others I know who would have said no to that kind of deal. At the very least they would have thought about it, wrestling with the pros and cons for a few days.

  John took about zero seconds to decide.

  My goodness, I thought. He has principles.

  I’d be lying if I didn’t say I liked that. Very much.

  After that business idea went bust, we still kept in touch on a personal level. ‘I found the real person,’ John says now. ‘Olivia was so friendly, engaging, sincere and genuine. I began to learn that she is such a caring person. It was very meaningful to me.’

  He would occasionally send me pictures of his dog, whom he renamed Sherlock. He told me that he tried different names, but nothing stuck. Then he was at his brother Don’s house one day and saw the dog sniffing around. Don said, ‘Hey, Sherlock, what are you doing?’ Ears suddenly perked up. The name was perfect and Sherlock confirmed this by answering to it.

  Eight years later, I was performing near John’s hometown in Florida. I called home to check on things and told my assistant Dana, ‘I think John lives somewhere near here in Florida. Why don’t you call him and invite him and his girlfriend to the show?’

  He actually sho
wed up with another ‘date’. He arrived backstage the next night with Sherlock! I hadn’t seen the pup in so many years, yet he remembered me. A flurry of kisses and licks followed – and I’m talking about what happened between Sherlock and me.

  John and I chatted a bit about what was going on in our busy lives. The interesting thing was he knew so little about my career.

  ‘I’ve never seen Grease,’ John confessed.

  I don’t presume everyone has heard me sing, but it seemed like the entire world had seen Grease.

  ‘Never,’ he said with a smile.

  In fact, he knew very little about my music, although he was really interested in my album called Grace and Gratitude. I listened as he told me why the music touched his heart. We continued to talk about the deeper messages of the music we loved, and John confessed that he previously thought I was just this ‘Hollywood chick’ but now he was seeing me in a different light.

  Oh, and one more thing: he didn’t have a girlfriend anymore.

  He loved the concert, especially when I opened the show with ‘Pearls on a Chain’. He told me everyone in the audience was deeply moved. Later, John said that the moment hit him especially hard, piercing him right in the heart, as the song starts with a Peruvian flute. ‘I felt this wave of healing go through the audience,’ John recalls. ‘Everyone was crying. It was a big movement of healing moving through an entire auditorium. It came to me instantly. I knew who she was in that moment. I thought to myself, This woman is a healer. Music and song is just a medium of her healing. And all I could think about was connecting with the curanderos and healers I work with in the Amazon.’

  This was the song that started it all:

  Every day my sun will rise where you are

  Every night we sleep underneath the same stars.

  And if we stand face to face

  You will see love’s amazing grace